Eddie Redmayne opens up about playing rugby with Prince William and meeting the Queen: ‘She is so cool’

By Meaghan Wray

November 15, 2018

Though
Eddie Redmayne
hasn’t kept in touch with Prince William
since they were pals at Eton College, the British actor isn’t without a few
stories of his royal encounters! While appearing on
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the actor opened up about why
he felt sorry for the prince when they played rugby together and what it was
like to meet
the
Queen
while accepting his MBE.

Answering a caller question, the
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them star laughed while opening
up about his experience playing the British sport with William: “I always felt
a bit sorry for him because basically any school you’d play, all they wanted to
do was tackle Prince William in order for them to say ‘I tackled Prince
William,’” he joked. “So, if you were standing next to Prince William, it was
actually quite easy and quite fun!” The two were elected to The Eton Society,
which is an elite group of elected prefects, the
Daily
Mail
reported. “He took all the hits,” he told the
publication of their time on the Colts B ruby team in 1997. “I haven’t seen him
since school, but he was a lovely man.”

Two years ago, the Oscar-winning actor traveled to
Buckingham Palace as one of the lucky ones to receive an MBE from Her Majesty
and took along his beautiful wife, publicist Hannah Bagshawe. When asked by a
caller what the most nerve-wracking part of the experience was, the 36-year-old
responded: “Can I tell you the oddest part? So, you go to Windsor Castle and
you cue up alongside like, some of these extraordinary people who’ve genuinely
done brilliant things and you’re an actor and you feel a bit of a shmuck,” he
said with a laugh.

The father of two continued: “And then you go through a
door to meet the Queen and in that room, [a] huge assembly room of people, it’s
all royal and palatial. And there’s a string quartet playing music and just as
I was about to go in, you think it’s classical music, and I suddenly heard them
playing Coldplay!” While that experience was a bit disorienting, meeting the
Queen definitely lived up to his expectations, sharing: “[The Queen] is so
cool. I don’t remember her being small, but I was pretty nervous.”

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